No, using an epidural during your birth is not ‘wrong’. Using an epidural in birth indicates how deeply and broadly birthing women and birth-coaching fathers/others lack simple and effective skills.
OK, am I really saying that epidurals are somehow wrong? No, as Director for Common Knowledge Trust that holds all the skills hundreds of fathers and mothers developed in the early 1970s (and many thousand Birthing Better Birth Stories), I can just pass on what families have asked our Trust to say.
When it’s normal and natural in pregnancy to self-learn birth and birth-coaching skills then birthing women will (not ‘can’) cope better with the natural and normal pain of contractions. With birth skills, we can manage, handle, deal with, work through, stay on top of and feel in control even when we feel the intense pain of labor contractions?
Why would we do that? After all, we don’t have a root canal without pain relief. That’s right, I just had a root canal and had pain relief … but not an epidural.
We know from what Women say about childbirth labor pains: ‘The labor pains weren’t too bad at first. Then contractions became more painful. Then the contractions really got painful. Then I used an epidural so I could relax. The epidural helped me dilate”.
Let me translate the above comment:
1) Women saying this … lack simple, effective skills
With skills women can cope with the ‘productive’ pain of labor contractions.
2) Contractions are seen of as ‘one thing’ rather than 5 phases … they start, get more intense, peak, start to go away and then go away.
We can adapt and adjust our skills through each of these 5 phases
3) Fathers/others aren’t skilled
When a father/other has birth-coaching skills, then they can help the birthing woman cope and stay on top of the 5 phases of each contraction.
4) When humans experience any intense pain, we do ‘fright, flight, fear, freeze’ and we often tense up.
Learning to soften inside and create space for you baby is easy and effective so you dilate well and progressively.
5) Is it preferable to birth without an epidural? No. What’s preferable is for all expectant mothers and fathers to self-learn birth and coaching skills then use those skills. Not as many women will want or need an epidural when we have a skilled birthing population across the board!